Winter 2020

Thermidor in the USSR

Thermidor in the USSR

The news from the USSR is ominous. The Soviet Interior ministry has attacked institutions of representative government in Lithuania and Latvia; Estonia waits nervously. Unarmed supporters of the elected governments of these republics have been shot or crushed under tanks. For the moment, Moscow has turned down some of the pressure—no one knows for how long. Meanwhile, Gorbachev has driven the reformers and liberals from his government, beefed up the military and the KGB, and sought to reimpose censorship. He continues to assert, less and less convincingly, that his goals remain unchanged.